MacNews Blog

Jan 03

Online gaming will be a $20 billion business in 2012

Driven by North American, European and Asia Pacific markets, online gaming continues its steady growth and the latest study from ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com) forecasts revenues of slightly more than $20 billion in 2012. Technology developments will mean new opportunities for connected devices beyond the computer.

The Asia-Pac region, especially China, will be the engine behind much of this growth. However, in China, due to generally lower levels of personal computer ownership, the business models are evolving a little differently. According to industry analyst Michael Inouye, “World of Warcraft, for instance, generates significant revenue for Activision in Europe and North America on a subscription basis. But in China, despite a large ‘subscriber’ base, the revenues are far smaller: it's more of a pay-as-you-go model (prepaid game cards). This also creates a greater reliance on ‘cloud’...

Once again I'm gazing into my crystal ball to foresee what I see coming from Apple in the year ahead. Just remember: this is all for fun and I have no insider info, so these predictions are based on nothing but my experience and gut feelings.

Prediction one: The iPhone will come to Verizon at long last. Yes, it will actually happen by March.

Prediction 2: The second gen iPad will appear before the end of March. It will have a camera for FaceTiming, but NOT a second camera for taking photos; as svelte as it is, the iPad is too bulky to use as a camera. Speaking of size, there'll be no 7-inch iPad. The 9.7-inch version will sport a slightly tweaked form factor and a micro-USB slot. There may be a 128GB version (at least I'm hoping so).

Prediction 3: The iPod line-up will be overhauled in the second or third quarter. At long last the classic will disappear from the line-up. I also think the shuffle will vanish...

Apple may be considering making its own portable power supplies. An company patent (number 20100327664) for a portable power source to provide power to an electronic device via an interface has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It relates to portable power sources and, in particular, relates to a portable power source operable to selectively provide power to a device connected to an interface of the portable power source.

The portable power source cooperates and communicates with the electronic device via a peripheral bus to which the electronic device is attachable. The portable power source includes circuitry to process a power request signal from the electronic device to determine whether a device connected to a bus interface of the portable power source is requesting power from the portable power source. The inventors are David John Tupman, Doug M. Farrar, Joseph R. Fisher Jr., Jesse L. Dorogusker and Donald J. Novotney.

Ping on iTunes hasn't exactly set the world ablaze, but Apple seems to be considering a similar feature for its online stores. An Apple patent (number 20100332283) for social networking in shopping environments has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

This is directed to a system and method for providing social networking services using a portable electronic device. In some embodiments, a user may identify one or more articles of interest and transmit identifying information for the articles to mobile or other devices of the user's friends. The user's friends can review the identified articles, and provide comments for the user.

For example, the user's friends can give a thumbs up/down, a star rating, a comment (e.g., text, audio or video), or any other type of comment. In some embodiments, the user can request the assistance of a salesperson using the social networking application device, for example to request recommended articles based on a...

Several Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 20100332124 involves analyzing and consolidating track file data. Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, are disclosed for track simplification and correction. In one aspect, a track data set having track points defining a course can be accessed and inaccurate track points and incorrect track points can be identified, wherein identifying inaccurate track points includes comparing, for one or more of the track points, a dilution of precision (DOP) value associated with the track point to a DOP threshold, and identifying incorrect track points includes performing an error correction process.

You can already use your iOS devices as remote controls for certain gadgets. And a new Apple patent (number 20100328224) at the US Patent & Trademark Office shows that Apple wants to beef up these functions even more.

The patent is directed to controlling media playback based on particular touch gestures detected by a touch-sensing interface. The electronic device can identify particular touch inputs, such as combinations of tapping and holding a touch sensitive surface, or circular motions. In response to detecting a particular touch gesture, the electronic device can perform a playback operation specifically associated with the detected touch gesture. To provide a consistent user interface with the device, some of the particular touch gestures can match other inputs provided using a button, for example a button integrated on a wired headset. In such an embodiment, the same combination of tapping and holding a touch input and pressing and holding a button can control...

A year ago I made my predictions for what Apple would do in 2010. So let's see how effective I was.

First prediction: By spring we'll see new versions of iLife and iWork, which will probably be dubbed iLife X and iWork X instead of iLife '10 and iWork '10.

The truth: iLife wasn't introduced until October -- and it was dubbed iLife '11, not iLife X. iWork '11/X never showed up.

Second prediction: iWork.com will come out of beta and Apple will promote it heavily along with iWork. iWork is a service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments...

The difference is in the "go to market" plan which is charged per download with Apple and "all you can eat" with NetFlix. As I have mentioned in previous articles, the NetFlix plan makes a lot more sense than the Apple plan. Marshall extrapolates that Apple might see revenue of just over US$100 million per quarter, while NetFlix will see revenue of $550 million. The DVD in the mail from NetFlix is being phased out, so soon both companies will be strictly streaming content.

Some have speculated that NetFlix's greatest asset is its smooth "DVD in the mail system" using the US Post Office. I can testify DVDs going both ways through the mail come as fast as the bills do. When NetFlix goes strictly...

Spam is used either as a noun to refer to unsolicited bulk email, or as a verb to refer to the act of sending same. There are two categories of spam -- the difference depending on whether or not the mail has a commercial or monetary aspect;that is, the sender is attempting to obtain money from the recipients for a service, product, or cause.

There may or may not also be a fraudulent aspect to the spam -- generally one should expect that those who engage in one unethical activity would challenged where the truth is concerned as well. For instance, non-commercial spam is frequently sent to argue for or against some cause, and may be abusive of the recipient, or of some identifiable group or organization to which the recipient may be supposed to belong. Sometimes it's even a one-time friend or former fellow member of some organization who is now prosecuting a vendetta in semi-public fashion.

I'm looking forward to the Mac App Store when it debuts next week. But I'm also hoping it doesn't become the only -- or even the main -- source of software for the Mac.

The Mac App Store will launch on Jan. 6 for Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") and will be built into next summer's Mac OS X Lion. By bringing the Apple App Store experience to Mac OS X, the Mac App Store makes discovering, installing and updating Mac apps easier than ever, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.

Purchased apps can run on all of your personal Macs and updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store. so it will be able to keep all of your apps up-to-date. For users who need consumer level apps and don't want to have to deal with DMG files, update notifications, etc., this will be a great thing...

An Apple patent (number 7,859,521) for an integrated touch screen has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. And it shows that Apple is at least considering "touchless" touch screen interfaces for some devices -- including Macs.

The patent relates generally to displays including display pixel stackups, and more particularly to touch sensing circuitry integrated into the display pixel stackup of a display. Per the patent, displays with touch sensing circuitry integrated into the display pixel stackup are provided.

Circuit elements, such as touch signal lines, such as drive lines and sense lines, grounding regions, in the display pixel stackups can be grouped together to form touch sensing circuitry that senses a touch on or near the display. An integrated touch screen can include multi-function circuit elements that can operate as circuitry of the display system to generate an image on the display, and can also form part of a touch sensing system that...

Apple has been granted two patents by the US Patent & Trademark Office involving its Time Machine backup and restoration technology in Mac OS X.

Patent number 7856424 is for an user interface for backup management. ystems and methods for providing a user interface including earlier versions of data are disclosed.

In one implementation, computer program product is provided. The computer program product generates a user interface. The user interface includes a view display area for presenting a current view and a history view display area for presenting a history view associated with the current view. The history view includes one or more first visual representations of corresponding earlier versions of the current view. The user interface also includes an input control for initiating a restoration of the current view according to at least a portion of an earlier version of the one or more earlier versions.

In 2011, Facebook and other companies may join Apple, Google and Microsoft in the cloud TV arena. What's more, the Strategy Analytics research group (http://www.strategyanalytics.com) notes that Apple’s iTunes will enter its second decade with challenges ahead, and Nintendo will have to decide what to do about the decline of the Wii. Social networks will pass one billion users, $10 billion will be spent on Blu-ray discs, and more than 500 million connected TV devices will be in use. Revenues from tablets will exceed netbooks, but on the downside, only 20% of 3DTV owners will be watching 3D content.

“2011 promises to be another exciting year in the evolution of the digital home,” says David Mercer, principal analyst, Strategy...

Apple has won a patent (number 7,856,059) from the US Patent & Trademark Office involving determining the number of unidirectional and bidirectional motion compensated frames to be encoded for a video sequence and detecting scene cuts in the video sequence.

Methods for processing a set of successive video frames in two passes to determine the number of bidirectional (B) and unidirectional (P) motion compensated frames to be encoded in a video coding system. During the first pass, motion vectors and motion costs are computed for each frame and a derived cost value is computed based on the motion cost of at least one frame.

The derived cost value is used to determine the number (N.sub.B) of B-frames to be encoded in the set of successive frames. In the second pass, the set of successive frames are encoded where N.sub.B frames are encoded as B-frames and some or all motion vectors computed in the first pass are re-used in the second pass. A scene cut detection...

I am amused to read the ravings of clueless tech sorts like the court jester of high tech writers Dvorak, who are normally so very wrong about Apple and its products. A lot of PC minions are clamoring for news that iPad is cannibalizing Macs sales. That does not seem to be supported by the numbers. Mac, iPhones and iPads are all flying off the shelf.

There is one sort of cannibalism I can relate to. Some of the time I would have spent on-line with my MacBook Pro I spend on my iPad these days. Since I have an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro, sometimes there is a certain calculous in my mind as I reach for one of them sitting on my desk to browse or do a certain task. There is a lot of truth to the statement that the Mac is for creating content and the iPad is for consuming content. The iPhone is for web content and a phone that fits in your pocket.

There are people who can clearly get by with just an iPad who might have popped for a...

An upcoming iPhone could place the antenna behind the Apple logo, based on a new patent (number 20100321253) for a dielectric window antenna for electronic devices at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Per the patent, logo antennas are provided for electronic devices such as portable computers. An electronic device may have a housing with conductive housing walls. A logo antenna may be formed from an antenna resonating element such as a patch antenna resonating element, a monopole antenna resonating element, or other antenna resonating element structure. A conductive cavity may be placed behind the antenna resonating element.

A dielectric antenna window that serves as a logo may be used to cover the antenna resonating element. The dielectric antenna window may be mounted in an opening in the conductive housing walls. A positive antenna feed terminal may be coupled to the antenna resonating element. A ground antenna feed terminal may be coupled to the cavity and...

An Apple patent (number 20100325194) for a push-based location update has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It's generally related to location information updates for mobile devices.

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for a location information server to gather location updates by sending location-update-requests through a push notification service to a mobile device are disclosed. The mobile device provides location updates in response to the push-based location-update-requests received through the push notification service. The mobile device can switch from a self-initiated location update mode to a push-based location update mode depending on the current state of the mobile device.

The mobile device can also choose an appropriate positioning system for self-locating based on the information embedded in the location-update-request received through the push notification service. The information embedded in the pushed location-update-...

A new Apple patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office shows that Apple is looking at developing new edge-lit backlight displays for Macs and its iOS devices. Patent number 20100321609 is for an edge-lit backlight unit with a thin profile. The invention relates generally to backlight units of electronic display panels, such as liquid crystal displays.

An edge-lit backlight unit for a display is provided per the patent. In one embodiment, the backlight unit may include a light guide configured to receive light from a source and emit such light in a broad distribution to a turning film disposed over the light guide. The turning film may be configured to redirect light received from the light guide toward a normal of the turning film.

In one embodiment, the light guide may be configured such that peak light distribution therefrom occurs at an incident angle of approximately sixty degrees, with broad light distribution substantially occurring over an angular range...

Apple is apparently working on a new display standard, based on a patent (number 20100321395) for a display simulation system and method that has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to display devices and, more specifically, to techniques for simulating display devices on a computing device.

A display simulation system is provided having a flexible design for emulating and/or supporting any number of display types and/or display standards. The display simulation system may include one or more reference drivers that include a virtual graphics processing unit (GPU) and one or more virtual frame buffer drivers.

In one embodiment, the display simulation system may implement a virtual display in response to a user selection input. For instance, the user selection input may initiate a simulated hot-plug event on the display simulation system. Based upon the user selection, an appropriate display profile corresponding to the selected...

New high tech products are sold, first at the hopeful high price the manufacturer would like to hold as the "suggested retail price.". If the product sells like hotcakes at the high launch price point there is no reason to cut the price until the market is saturated. The market place is not kind to products that are not perceived as the best in their class. Why buy a Zune, for example, when you could buy an iPod for the same money?

Yesterday, blood was in the water again, as the realities of the market place -- read that the great white shark called Apple -- killed two more potentially competitive products. I have dissed the Microsoft Vista 7 Mobile Phone platform as being just average, when exemplary had to happen. It didn't. The ramifications for Microsoft are bleak indeed. Microsoft's aspirations for the mobile device market are over.

The "MacNews" and "MacTech" sites will be closed Friday for Christmas. We wish all of you a happy holiday and offer this little holiday poem for your amusements.

Twas the start of a new year -- 2011
Yet another 12 months of good Apple heaven
Our wish stockings were hung in our brains without care
To answer all our wishes Apple hasn't a prayer

We Apple fans are nestled in front of our Mac
That "beleaguered" computer that's come roaring back
While rumors of Sandy Bridge processors sound mighty good
And Light Peak and Blu-ray, oh, they'd be soooo good

And out in Cupertino there arose such a clatter
Steve Ballmer jumped out of bed to see what was the matter
Away to his private jet he flew like a flash
Kicking through piles of unsold Windows 7 Phone stash

The sun beating down on the Infinite Loop of good buzz
Gave the luster of mid-day because, well, it was
When what to Ballmer's wondering eyes...

Sometimes we talk about what companies Apple should buy. Well, maybe it should hire TUAW's Eric Sadun -- or buy too great apps that he's developing: AirPlayer and AirFlick. Both are in alpha testing and both make a great complement to Apple's AirPlay technology.

AirPlay lets you stream music, photos and video from your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch directly to the Apple TV. Unfortunately, you can't stream media from the iOS device to your Mac or from your Mac to the Apple TV with AirPlay.

The FCC voted 2 to 3 to make the new rules regarding wired "Net Neutrality" official. It won't be know for some time if they even had the authority, since the radio waves are not in use for wired Internet, but the principles of the rules may be adopted by Congress, anyway. The Internet wants to be free of censorship by ISPs and not be controlled by carriers of broadband service.

NetFlix and others big in the downloadable content business are likely very glad to see the cable companies throttled back. Apple stands as much as any company to benefit from the rules, despite the potential for people claiming they are trying to manage the internet by allowing or not allowing iOS apps in the Apple App Store.

The Windows Stuxnet worm continues to frighten US experts due to the potential that it can be converted into malware that might attack our infrastructure and cause an unknown amount of damage. While...

Apple has also won a patent (number 7856424) that involves its Time Machine backup feature. The patent is for systems and methods for providing a user interface including earlier versions of data. In one implementation, computer...

The FCC is preparing to make rules for what is called "Net Neutrality." This is important to those of us who use the Internet and particularly those who might want to innovate in new services related to broadband, like Apple.

There will likely be a vote today, and it is expected the FCC will move to ban wired broadband Internet providers from blocking or slowing down traffic they don't like. The notion is to make wired broadband unrestricted by ISPs to the benefit of streaming services.

Ironically, despite a lot of concern about what the FCC does in this area, a recent Federal Court ruling raises issues as to the jurisdiction of the FCC to make rules concerning broadband Internet, in the first place. This will play out in the courts and the Congress. As we have seen Apple launch into a number of download services over the last few years, with more on the way, the openness of the Internet will become more and more important to...

At this point it’s pretty safe to say that no MOBA is going to dethrone Dota 2 and League of Legends anytime soon. After all, if Batman can’t do it, nobody can. However, with a genre as popular and profitable as this one, there’s still room for smaller games to carve out unique identities. Jurojin: Immortal Ninja opts for this path with its... | Read more »

Final February Fun at 148Apps
How do you know what apps are worth your time and money? Just look to the review team at 148Apps. We sort through the chaos and find the apps you’re looking for. The ones we love become Editor’s Choice, standing out above the many good apps and games with something just a little bit more to offer. Take a look at... | Read more »

GDC 2015 – Does Not Commute is Definitel...

GDC 2015 – Does Not Commute is Definitely a Game You Should Keep an Eye on
Posted by Rob Rich on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
We were teased about Mediocre Games’ (Smash Hit,
| Read more »

F84 Games & POW! Announce Stan Lee V...

F84 Games has announced that it is working with legendary comic creator Stan Lee and POW! Entertainment to produce Stan Lee’s Hero Command. The game will be a action adventure of heroic proportions.
| Read more »

Setlyst Keeps Your Set Straight So You C...

Setlyst Keeps Your Set Straight So You Can Focus On Rocking Out.
Posted by Jessica Fisher on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
| Read more »

Space is Vast, So Space Agency Has a Vas...

Space is Vast, So Space Agency Has a Vast New Update!
Posted by Jessica Fisher on March 2nd, 2015 [ permalink ]
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
| Read more »

Size DOES Matter Review

Size DOES Matter Review
By Campbell Bird on March 2nd, 2015
Our Rating: :: HARD TO BEATUniversal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
This rhythm game has a unique control scheme and performance system that make it feel like a true innovation in the genre.
| Read more »

The first ever action 3D card battler Al...

On the other hand, you probably haven’t played an action 3D card battler – until now. Step forward, All Star Legion.
All Star Legion is a 3D QTE-based action RPG card battler, but fear not – the game itself isn’t as convoluted as its description.
You collect over thirty heroes to train and summon into battle with you, first deciding on the timing... | Read more »

Travel Back to the 1980s With the Making...

Headup Games has released a hilarious making of video for its upcoming title, Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic. The game is a RPG/Roguelike where you control three heroes set to save the township of Pixton from an evil cult called The Sons of Dawn. They’re going to summon up some ancient, terrible god so you had better work fast to thwart the cult’s... | Read more »

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